


Sinking Air

by Chaifootsteps



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Origins - Awakening
Genre: Explicit Consent, M/M, Pre-Dragon Age II, Resolved Sexual Tension, Romance, Transgender
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-16
Updated: 2016-04-12
Packaged: 2018-05-14 06:23:44
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,170
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5732695
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chaifootsteps/pseuds/Chaifootsteps
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“My door will be open tonight.”</p><p>“...Come again?”</p><p>After a long, noble effort to pretend that Anders <em>doesn't</em> make him feel like the subject of every hideous Tevene love poem in existence, Warden-Commander Ain Caron hangs up his sword gracefully.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

“My door will be open tonight.”

“...Come again?”

“I said that my door will be open. Tonight. All night.”

And that was all that Ain had said on the matter. 

He’d done so early in the morning -- _quite_ early, but after coffee -- which he thought allowed for ample time. Time enough for Anders to reconsider. Time to think up a polite way to decline. Perhaps most importantly, time enough for him to pretend he hadn’t even heard.

Ain hadn’t expected that he would actually come walking through that door, turn around, and lock it ever so gently behind himself. 

 “Sooo...” he drawled.

“So,” echoed Ain, rising, and in the process abandoning the book he hadn’t really been reading. 

A foolish plan, it went without saying. If it weren’t, they would have had at each other the moment they realized their stolen glances were growing less and less innocent with each passing week. Even now Ain questioned the ethics of inviting a subordinate up to his quarters in the dead of night.

And stepping in near to him, close enough to smell the softsoap on his hair and the mana on his skin...

And cupping his face, thumb rolling over the stubble, and the little spot where he always failed to shave...

_“So.”_

After that, there was very little talking involved. And for someone like Anders who thrived on chatter, Ain couldn’t imagine what that might mean.

But there was certainly kissing...an ugly, ravenous, noisy affair that clapped their backs up against the wall and set the paintings rattling. It was clear that whatever dams had been holding back their respective wells of restraint lay well and truly shattered, given way to hands that tugged and pulled and clawed. The mage was doing things with his tongue that left Ain short of breath, but made the world taste like summer.

Anders never asked if he was sure, thank goodness, but as articles of their clothing rained down without ceremony, he stopped at Ain’s binder.

“Should I...?”

The Warden-Commander paused for a moment with hands still hovering on the mage’s sash, pulling increasingly muddied thoughts together. “Just leave it. I’d just as soon keep the tunic off.”

Anders concurred with a purr, and his fingers danced along the hard muscles of Ain’s abdomen until they fluttered.

So easy, so effortless, these Tevinter robes...all loose folds and flimsy ties. When at last there was nothing standing between him and Anders’ naked body but sweat and lamplight, Ain began to wonder if he weren’t going a little mad. More precisely, he felt like a man who’d spent his life chasing treasure, wading through bogs and starving on mountains, only to have it dropped on his doorstep all tied up with silk ribbon. 

In short? There was simply _no way_ he was going to be able to handle all that freckled, linden soft skin stretched out across firm, graceful muscle. Nor the reality that his ass was the kind of ass that begged and pleaded to be bitten...and _oh_ , _heavens be praised,_ that enticing place where his hip lines formed a most helpful v-shape leading straight on to his...

Only by and by did he realize his jaw had slackened. Anders smirked. 

“I get that a lot.”

Ain promptly pounced, caging him flat against the mattress with his arms and knees.  _“I am going to fuck you until your toes curl permanently. Until your Maker descends from the Heavens and threatens to sew both our mouths shut, and we carry on anyway, right in front of him.”_

Astonishingly enough, Anders shivered beneath him.

“...Not...not so much that.”

There had been oil then, maybe too much oil, and the sound of his own breaths coming astonishingly steady in the wake of Ander’s groans, yelps, curses, and -- _so help him_ \-- the occasional whimper. It took so little to wind the other man up tight, nails gripping the sheets as he rolled his hips onto the Commander’s flexing fingers. 

_“Hnn, yes...oh yes...exactly yes...”_

And so much of it was _that_ , right there. Knowing Anders had been wanting this for as long as he had; that they were flying off the rails together, and would make sense of whatever they found down there in the abyss together. 

“Like this, do you?” he had growled somewhat reundantly, more for the taste of the words than for want of an answer.  

Anders had gasped, nodded, and finally ground his teeth in protest as his prostate and the pads of Ain’s fingers parted ways. He watched with half-starved intent as Ain retrieved and buckled on his prosthetic, briefly causing the old, familiar prickle of concern to flare in the Commander...but no. That gaze was wholly and utterly punch drunk with desire. Not a trace of disappointment to be found.

“Are you ready for me?” he’d asked. Anders in turn ground back against his lap, making a lewd offering of himself.

“ _Been_ ready, Commander.”

A hand curled under his stomach, urging him to roll. The fattest pillow propped beneath his thighs. A slick, shining tip poised to enter.

“No. My name. Say my _name_.”

“Ain...”And when the Commander made the mistake of pausing, letting it sink into all the small corners of himself... _“Ain.”  
_

Airy. Insistent. _Demanding._

Ain slid on home.

_“F-fuck!”_

If there was one great injustice in this world (there were many injustices in this world), it was that he could not feel just how hot and tight Anders was around him. But he could feel every muscle in his partner’s body thrum with pleasure, could get lost in the way the smooth base ground down exactly where it needed to grind down. 

And fate grant mercy, he could lay open mouthed kisses to the neck of the gorgeous man getting lost on his cock.

 _“It’s you,”_ Anders groaned. _“Sweet Maker, it’s you.”_

Ain made absolutely no effort to tamp down the warmth that curled in his chest at that. 

It was the welcomest of conflicts that raged within him; the desire to be gentle and considerate, the way Anders deserved, versus the desire to mark him anywhere and everywhere. A compromise would reveal itself the next day, in the form of three violet bruises on the neck.

“ _Perfect_ ,” he hissed into the crook of it, Anders’ loose hair falling down just as he’d always dreamed it would. “So perfect...”

And then it was all variations on Anders’ name. Every time, he thought he’d said it enough, and every time he was wrong.

Hands braced on upper thighs, he elected for long, rolling thrusts until he was certain (beyond a shadow of a doubt) that he’d hit prostate in a very opportune way. Anders cursed _loudly_ , smacked the headboard with his open palm, and from then on, deep snaps of the hips were all either of them could take.

If it didn’t last half as long as either of them would have been proud to admit, call it a consequence of waiting for so long.

Anders stuffed a fist between his thighs, crudely stroking himself. When he came, he came like a struck rabbit dies, twitching and jumping and arching and -- in true Anders fashion -- pulling his mouth _away_ from the pillow to yell properly. Four good, solid grinding motions later, Ain was right behind him. 

He collapsed forward onto his partner’s shoulders, rather ungraceful. Anders seemed entirely beyond caring.

(It was only in the _after_ -aftermath, safely distanced from the lapping heat of endorphins, that they’d become aware of just how cataphonic they’d both been. The suspicion was already there, and Ain vowed to be concerned with it in the future, when he wasn’t buried to the hilt in Anders' still-quivering body.)

There was so much to say. How did they rationalize this? Where did they even begin? 

Then Anders reached behind himself and blindly ran his palm up Ain’s side. He uttered a soft, meaningful little moan, rocking back against Ain’s length. The look in those warm brown eyes was all wordless request.

And Ain was only too willing to oblige.  

 

 

* * *

 

 "So the infamous ‘Grey Warden stamina’ is real after all?”

“You tell me.”

“...I think I lost count after the fifth, so yes, probably.”

“ _Mmm_ ,” Ain agreed happily. 

They lie side by side, the sheets a knotted mess around their spent, sweat-drenched bodies. Anders’ voice carried a hoarseness that was scandalous in its own right. Ain’s leg was slung over his calf. Every now and then, one of them would reach out and touch the other for no reason.

Conversation ensued between protracted, foot-dragging pauses. They scraped the bottom of the barrel for the vigor for more energetic pillow talk, but it simply wasn’t there. 

“Tell me, why didn’t we do this sooner?”

“Common sense prevailed. As of this moment, I’m officially an irresponsible lout who thinks with his bits.”

“I’ll say you are...Maker, is that the _sun coming up?”_ ”

Ain smiled. A slow, drugged, distinctly un-Ainlike smile that got the other man going as well, which somehow made it all worth it. He inched closer, back to the red light stealing through the window, and let the glowing river of syrup that was his train of thought guide his arms around Anders’ waist. 

Where, fate be willing, they would always be.

“Not at all.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _"It may seem counterinuitive, but if the air is rising violently in one place, producing hail, thunder, rain, and worse, then the air must be sinking nearby. As air sinks, it warms and dries, resulting in clear skies. Hurricanes are often preceded by a day or two of flawless blue sky." ~Restless Skies: The Ultimate Weather Book."_


	2. Chapter 2

 “…Do me a favor, Ain. Don’t make promises you can’t keep.”

The sight of Anders’ seemingly ever present smile fading, fading, and then vanishing would never be anything but an unjust one. Ain was quick to amend his statement.

“Fair enough. ‘To the very best of my ability, you will always be safe.’” And then, on further consideration…“Regardless of whether we’re sleeping together. Regardless of whether we even get along. No matter what is or isn’t going on between us, you are a Warden and a comrade and the Templars will not touch you if I have any say in it. And that’s firm.”

“Better. And…thank you.”

There was no use in pretending they weren’t long overdue for this discussion. Ain’s advisers, their companions, the cleaning staff…anyone who was even  _remotely_ close to either of them knew exactly what was going on. And after that little stunt in the armory last week, Ain suspected that quite a few of the Keep’s soldiers could say the same.

They’d had a glorious time not thinking about any of it, but all good things must come to an end.

“And what about you?” Anders ventured. “Any terms you’d like to set down?”

Ain hesitated. Considered the question long and hard.

They’d been over the basics, naturally. Drawn their lines where lines needed to be drawn. Ain didn’t like his chest touched, Anders had four scars that remained off limits; Ain couldn’t stomach penetration with anything larger than two fingers, and even then, only on his terms and his terms alone; Anders would sooner have juggled poison than had his head restrained. Their relationship on the battlefield was to remain unchanged, regardless of evening plans...by the same token, however, formal titles were to be left at the door. 

Sex had been a truly giddy undertaking for both of them these past few weeks – not so much an escape from the weight of the world as a blissful, mutual chucking aside. Underneath all of the recklessness and shoulder biting abandon was a rare sense of safety. They aimed to keep it that way.

But that wasn’t what the other man was referring to, and Ain knew it.

“…Don’t leave without a good-bye.”

Anders flinched. “ _Oooh_. Tall order to fill…”

“It really isn’t. I know you don’t like feeling tied down –” his lover _almost_ smirked, and if it were any other time, he’d have cracked a deeply predictable joke, even though ropes had been a highly conditional term as well “– and I don’t intend to box you in here. But I’m not one of your tavern maids, Anders. If you’re going to slip away, at least do me the courtesy of a proper good-bye.”

“Well, when you put it like that…alright. If it comes down to that, I promise I won't leave you without a good-bye.” And to Ain’s staggering relief, it sounded nothing less than genuine. “Though truth be told, I’m _really_ hoping it doesn't. Believe it or not, you’ve actually got me thinking this could all work out.”

Ain came dangerously close to snickering. “What, creating scandals wherever we go? Eyeing each other up in broad, blessed daylight?”

“Pretending it’s tactics we’re discussing in your tent? For four hours straight?” And _there_ was the grin Ain adored. The infectious one. “Believe me, Fearless Leader…the Templars would soil themselves with rage if they knew how content with life I am right now.”

And then he _did_ snicker, because no one took shots at the Templars quite like Anders did. 

But in all the time they spent together, Ain would maintain that those were some of the sweetest words Anders ever said to him.


End file.
